Vacuum cleaners are generally supplied with a range of tools for dealing with specific types of cleaning. The tools include a floor tool for general on-the-floor cleaning. Efforts have been made to improve the pick up performance of floor tools on carpeted floors. Some tools have a brush mounted in the suction inlet which is rotated so as to agitate the floor surface in the same manner as the brush bar of an upright vacuum cleaner. The brush can be rotated by the use of an air turbine or by an electric motor which is powered by a power supply derived from the main body of the cleaner. However, this type of tool is typically more expensive than the passive floor tool and consumes power.
Efforts have also been made to improve floor tools in a more passive manner. For example, EP 1 320 317 discloses a floor tool having a suction channel bounded on at least one side by a working edge for engaging with and agitating the floor surface. Lint pickers on the underside of the tool act as a one-way gate, allowing hair, fluff and other fibrous material to pass under the lint picker when the floor tool is pushed along the floor, but to block the lint when the floor tool is pulled backwards. The repeated forward and backwards action of the floor tool across the floor surface traps the lint and rolls it into a ball such that it can be sucked by the floor tool.
Another improvement is disclosed in GB 1,077,574, which discloses a tool having two discrete suction apertures with a duct interposed between them and extending across the width of the tool, the ends of the duct being open to the atmosphere. Such a tool gives good pick-up performance but the provision of the intervening air duct makes the overall size of the tool, and in particular its profile, larger than is desirable.